Episode 6: Smruthy Nair on being a migrant psychologist in Australia.
Anita:
Aileen, I so enjoyed hearing you and Smruthy having a chat about being migrant psychologists in Australia, which is so different to being someone who grew up and trained in Australia.
Aileen:
What do you think was the difference?
Anita:
I think one thing is I don't know that I've ever really heard migrant women talking about their experiences in psychology. So I think just having that felt like a whole new perspective on the profession. And I think also the two of you spoke about ideas about what Australian psychology would be like before coming, and then what the reality is; as well as the differences between psychology and your home countries and psychology here. We're kind of quite insular in Australia in a way, um, where a lot of people have only practiced in Australia. So I think I just found that a really valuable perspective.
Aileen:
Oh, thank you. I'm glad to hear that it was something new, like maybe a perspective that it's not that explored. I think maybe that's what we're missing to talk about the experience of being a migrant psychologist, especially 'cause, interestingly, Smurthy and I, we studied overseas and that was part of the conversation and that construct of studying overseas and working overseas and what happens when you come here to Australia and how that actually affects what you do professionally here and your work with clients. So I did enjoy that and it was so validating when we would click on ideas and say like, “yes! this is what was going on for me!”. And just seeing that represented into someone else's story and experience.
Anita:
Yeah, and Venezuela and India are really different countries, so it's so interesting to hear about the parallels in your thoughts about psychology in Australia.
Aileen:
Exactly, right? Just more like a general idea of migrating as a professional, because it is in different countries, in different continents. And yet we have so many similarities in, in our processes. So I really enjoyed it, that conversation with Smruthy. And in general, I do enjoy the conversations with Smruthy and something that I really admired of her is how, because of her journey as a psychologist from overseas, she's really tried to create different spaces for herself - that ended up spaces for us as well, like The Other Chair. Anita:
Yeah, and I think we wanted to mention and pay tribute to the other chair, which is something that Smruthy and her colleague at Unhypen Psychology, Bimba Chavan, have created and offer for free to the community of BIPoC practitioners.
Aileen:
It has been going on for so many years, and to be honest, participating in the other chair, it's been such a light bulb moment for me every time that I go there and to reflect on my own journey and my own practice as a woman of color. I'm so thankful for The Other Chair. I consider that the content of the other chair. It's amazing. Like I always learn something new, but it's also about the form of the group, the way that the discussions go about the way the nonverbal communication that happens in the group. It's not only that we're supportive, but how it happens that it looks so different from any other peer supervision group that I've attended in Australia. I love that.
Anita:
Yeah. And I, there's sort of invisible skills or skills that you can easily miss, needed to hold that kind of space as well. So thank you so much Smruthy and Bimba for providing this to the community. It means a lot.
Aileen:
Definitely. Thank you.
Anita:
Before we go on, I want to acknowledge a couple of things. One is that Aileen is speaking from Bunurong country while Smruthy is on Larrakia country in Darwin. And I also want to acknowledge that the audio quality in this is not so great. Hopefully it doesn't take away from the valuable conversation, but I just want to acknowledge that we weren't able to get the audio quite as good as we would like. So this one is a little bit of a departure from what I hope is usually quite good audio quality. But we felt that the conversation was so important that we still wanted to publish it. So I hope that you all enjoy this conversation between these wonderful practitioners. I as much as I do.
Smruthy:
My name is Smruthy Nair, I'm a psychologist and I'm a South Indian migrant who came to Australia in 2017. So I've been working here since then. And prior to that I used to work as a psychologist in India. Since coming here, I've worked across complex trauma, youth mental health, family violence, and now I work in education. I used to work in Melbourne, now I live in Darwin in the NT.
Aileen:
I would like you to tell us a little bit of your journey as a professional.
Smruthy:
I worked in India for six, seven years before I moved to Australia, so I did all my training in India, lived my entire life in India, had never been overseas before. I came here and I moved because sector here felt more structured and one of the things that I was really missing as a professional in India was this kind of network of other professionals. So I used to have a lot of interns who I used to train at my organization once they finish their Masters and then, you know, send them out into the world. But supervision was not a given there. You had to really seek it out with someone in the sector. It was not necessarily a part of your professional development or anything like that. I felt also like there's a lot of that kind of that scarcity mindset that is part of the culture that’s very hard to talk about, but that's definitely part of my cultural heritage. There's just, there's a lot of competition in the sector. There isn't a lot of collaboration. So I felt like, okay, I want to change to a different country and, and see what the sector is like. But of course, what they don't tell you before you move to Australia is that if you're from another country, and even if you have qualifications in psychology or are a registered psychologist in your country and you're not from an English speaking country, they made you do the whole process of assessing your qualifications and then telling you haven't done enough study or you don’t know anything about the Australian context. I had been working in Australia for a year and a half at that point, but I still had to do that. And that’s something they do not tell you.
Aileen:
I found very interesting that you're talking about, thinking about Australia and psychology. It felt more structured, but then when you got here it was a completely different experience. And I really feel the same way that the idea of Australia outside of Australia is so different from when you're here. In terms of practice, what do you think is the main difference? These things that no one told you that now you know?
Smruthy:
Yeah, that's such a good question because it really forces me to reflect on what my experience was and while I still stand by the fact that the sector here was much more mature and structured when I moved. I think the practice is also hyper structured. Which is not how I was trained in India. So there's a lot more flexibility in how you want to invite those concepts in your practice and how you relate to clients. We also use different languages. I speak two different languages that I used to use regularly in practice. I still kind of weave in and out of those languages and psychology in English and you know, using the therapeutic language but using different languages with clients to be able to relate to them. So there's a, a lot of more focus, I would say, on that therapeutic relationship building and being culturally responsive or being intersectional within India as well. And I find it really fascinating, being Indian, but we have so many different subcultures in India because it the country is so big, there are lot of different people. So I felt like I had to be intersectional in my practice from day. There was no question about that. But when I came to Australia, we, you know, pride from being a multicultural country, we had so much diversity, we had so many migrants. We have long history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait people here. And there was no intersectionality in my practice that I was trained in here. I think the, the extent of intersectionality was probably LGBTIQ+ inclusion and disability inclusion. Those were the two aspects that people felt quite comfortable talking about. But there wasn't discussion about systemic harms or about racial diversity or about cultural diversity within different races as well, or religious needs that clients bring into practice. So I think felt like this is, this sounds like you know that all of this exists, but you don't want to do it yet. That's what my take was about the practice here and the workplaces I worked in kind of reaffirmed that, that nobody wanted to talk about it. It's just too big, it's too much. It's not our place to talk about it, you know, let somebody else do the work and we'll pick it up when it comes. That was the attitude.
Aileen:
In my head while you're talking, what I can see, it's sort of a room where you go in as a psychologist, but then on at the door you need to leave who you are. You need to leave or you cannot talk about this and all this. It's stays outside of this room, and then you only can come with, this is step by step what you need to do because this is what has research that works, but nothing else. And you cannot talk about this with the client and this things, this is not what we’re thinking about here. Whereas, and I feel the same way in Venezuela, the kind of therapeutic relationship that we have, it's wholesome? We come as with our full identity, with our full selves, into the therapeutic room.
And that's been very tricky when I actually see Venezuelan clients in therapy, because recognizing that this is where we come from and they come differently and that Australian practices are a misservice for my Venezuelan clients and I'm not gonna do that. So things starting from - we hug when we meet someone; like we hug, we kiss on the cheek. If you're female to female, that's what we do. If you don't do that, that's disrespectful. But I wouldn't be able to do that in practice here with other clients or Australian clients so from the get go having supervision around talking to my client about how we are going to greet inside the office instead of outside, just to accommodate that. And we're not even talking about the therapeutic work yet. We haven't even sat down! Has that been your experience?
Smruthy:
Very much so, with Indian clients. You know, I always tell people that with Indian clients you can always expect an invitation for lunch because that's just what we do. Most Indian people, one of the ways that we show that respect and that sense of warmth and hospitality to other people we meet is by inviting them home for a meal. And that's just anybody, you know, you make a new friend on the bus and they'll invite you home for a meal or you go to a new workplace and everyone there will expect that you invite them all home for a meal because now you are friends. You just have to be friends because you work together. There's no argument about that. So with Indian clients… you know, this is definitely frowned upon in Australian practice where you are expected to be this blank slate, you are expected to disclose nothing about yourself and that even though those practices are not really taught anymore, I think supervisors are moving away from that, there are quite a few people out there who still practice that way or and who still hold that. And that will work for them. But Indian clients will often come and say, oh, you know, thank you so much for working with me on this issue. I feel so much better, you have to come home. Or if you don't come home, they'll bring something from home, they’ll cook, they’ll bring something from home. I've got sweets and I've got lunch invites. And I've got opportunities to say hi and hello to family members because even though confidentiality, my Indian clients will often bring their parents or their sibling or their partner. I've got puppies and dogs brought to me because, you know, my clients see them as their kids and they bring them because they wanted me to meet them and I'm very happy to do that. That feels very natural for me. And I do not expect that, or say if I had a client who is not Indian or who's Australian, I don't expect them to share that value. So I don't expect that from them. But with Indian clients, and I’m so brazen about this, with Indian clients I know that's going to happen. That's totally fine. And like we said we accommodate that into our practice.
Aileen:
Yeah.
Smruthy:
And I unfortunately have gotten comments and not, this is not even an Indian client, I've got comments from colleagues about, oh, you must have really poor boundaries with your clients. Because one of my clients was in a really difficult position during COVIDm and they needed a lot of support to get out of that position. It was COVID and they were traveling and they got stuck. And so we had to do some work around that. And one of my colleagues commented when this client finished their final session and left me some flowers, it was a female client as well. But my colleague commented, oh, you must have really poor boundaries with your clients and just walked away.
Aileen:
Wow.
Smruthy:
And I thought, oh, okay. So for our clients, this is such a difficult position because when we have to think of ethics and confidentiality and maintaining privacy for our clients, and all those things we have to think about. We encourage clients to bring their whole selvf to therapy, and then why are we being so critical about when they do bring their whole self to therapy?
Aileen:
Yeah, exactly. And it's all difficult…this reminds me of this term of an in-betweener, right? You are in between your culture and your workplace. And it's actually something that I would like to talk about with you and it's - what do you think clinicians who are people of colour need from their workplace? What do you think we need as clinicians and people of colour in workplaces to really thrive and really bring our strengths? And service our clients the best to the best of our abilities?
Smruthy:
The things that we talk to our clients about. You know, we talk to them about psychological flexibility. We talk to them about not making assumptions. We talk to them about not relying on our unhelpful, critical thoughts. It would be great if we could also be extended all of those things by our colleagues, you know, as people of colour in the workplace or as people with multicultural or migrant identities. It would be great to have that same kind openness and curiosity and compassion extended to us that we're expected to show to our clients. Because at the end of the day….it’s that assumption, you know, that your practice is not as good as mine because you came from somewhere else. “Oh, you speak Enligh so well!” I’m like, I've always spoken English or done my entire education, 15, 16 years of it in English. What does it say? How do you not know that other people in the world live their life like this? How are you so close minded? How small your world is that you feel that everyone has the same experiences as you and how privileged are you that you don't even have to reflect on that. I’m required to reflect on it every day at work.
Aileen:
Exactly. It's like we have to, and I'm guessing that I see it as: either do it the way that I do it, or you're incompetent. There's those two options.
Smruthy:
Black and white thinking (laughs).
Aileen:
Yes. Our competency is always in question. I’m wondering how we can call them in and promote their allyship instead of….I don't know how to say this, but I feel so angry all the time. And it's really hard, you know, because it hurts, and it's tiring. So how do we make a call out to allyship?
Smruthy:
I think that's definitely been happening. There is an attitude shift that has been happening for a long time, it’s just that it’s extremely slow. I'm so glad you're asking me this question because we usually don't get time to talk about this. Look at the teaching from established leaders in the field of intersectionality. A lot of them live and work overseas, they’re not in Australia necessarily, but allyship is really hard to welcome when there is a position of privilege associated with the positions that these people occupy. So if they have, you know, class privilege, if they have the privilege of being born and raised here and speaking with that Australian accent, if they have the privilege of being white or being cisgender, being male. If they have a lot of these privileges, what’s in it for them to extend their allyship to you? Why should they step out of their comfort zone and extend allyship? What I would look at instead is who willing to grow, who is willing to sit in the discomfort of questioning their privilege? Because not everyone is going to do that, and I cannot be really bothered thinking about the fact that I want everyone to be called in because that’s not really in my control. It really is a choice the other person has to make. What is within my control is to educate and to create deep friendships with people who want better, who need better, among my own colleagues who are also people of color or who are also marginalised in some way, I can do that. That is it my control. And so I shifted my focus to that because as much as I want it to happen, maybe the change has to come from the inside. I can't expect others to change for me.
Aileen:
Yep. And I'm guessing that's where The Other Chair comes about from this - what's within your control.
Smruthy:
Yeah, that's exactly how it came about. And I was working at one of the practices I was working at before I noticed I was the only person of colour at the practice there. And I noticed… to see individual people working, right, we don't get to see how individual practitioners work with their individual clients, but during group supervision, I noticed that there were all these assumptions being made about clients from a different culture about how just because they're from a certain ethnicity, they have trauma automatically, or that just because they're a migrant, they put a certain stereotype.
I'm just sitting there reflecting on the fact that, well, why did you make that assumption? This is a formulation. Formulation is not supposed to be assumptions. You know, if you're doing your clinical psychology work properly, you're not supposed to fill your formulation with assumption, and the assumptions were loaded with bias. These were negative stereotypes being projected onto people who are not even my clients. And I just thought, no, this is, this is not right. And when I tried to have those conversations with my then colleagues, they just kept looking at me as if I had three heads, like they could not understand why I was talking about this or where did I get all these ideas from? And so I backed off a little bit and when I left that workplace, I thought I need to talk about the stuff that I face as a practitioner in workplaces and about how I do culturally responsive work in my practice. I need to do aboth those things, I can't separate the two. And who do I talk to about this?
You know, I was very angry at that time. I completely empathized with the angrer you feel. And I actually joked to one of my friends who was one of the first people who came to The Other Chair. I told them let's start the angry PoC therapist venting group, and we both laughed about it. So that was the original name of The Other Chair. You know, I called it the angry BIPOC venting group or something like that. That was intention because I felt so alone in at work. I felt like I the had to call these friends up who are all people of colour, who had experiences of migration or moving to Australia at a young age, whatever it was, who had experienced systemic harm and racism and colourism and these kind of things. I called multiple people and I realised every time I had like a day at work that I wanted to debrief about, these were the people I was reaching out to. And a few of them knew each other, a few of them didn't, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna make all my friends, friends with each other. So I sent out the email invite, and I said, everyone, you have to show up for this. We are gonna meet all my friends. So I was, I was the connecting factor, but nine people showed up, nine of my friends showed up.
Aileen:
Wow.
Smruthy:
And that's where the conversation started. And yeah, we put this out there. I put it on a page on my website on Unhyphen, because I wanted other practitioners like me who are stuck in different parts of Australia and New Zealand, to come in and have these conversations. They were also feeling lonely. And I had a couple of friends from India join in as well because I realized I had beautiful privilege of having practiced in a psychologist in India and practiced in Australia. A lot of Australian psychologists don't have that. They don't know how practice works in other countries, and I thought they can bring that real intersectional perspective, a global perspective and talk to us about what this contemporary practice looks like. Because the world is much bigger than the psychology our clinics show. And our clients are not limited in their experience. They come from so many places.
Aileen:
What I really admire about the work that you do, and I think of your journey, is that you are so much in touch with yourself that you are really good at identifying the inequalities around you. Whereas like my journey has been about recognizing my internalised racism. And it's like, oh, actually I personalise a lot of what's happening around me, and you are like, no, this is not on me. This is the experience where I am. I can identify that and this is what I can control. So thank you for that because it's true. The Other Chair has been a place where I'm like, oh, other people feel like me and there's nothing wrong with me. Actually, there's other reasons other than - I'm not incompetent. It's not because I didn't study in Australia, there's other things happening and I do hold knowledge that I bring something to the table and it's shifting that into - oh, I need to do this to have a chair on the table. Then, oh, I don’t know if I want to be on this table at all.
Smruthy:
I'm so glad you have that experience, I have to say I credit this incidentally to my training in India. I was trained as a narrative therapist. I was trained in so many different modalities of work. There was a lot of openness to experiencing different modalities of therapy, and that may just be because I got really lucky with the university I went to or the teachers that I got, but there was always a kind of layer of intersectionality to how I was taught, because India has so many various different groups of people and we deal with so many different levels of systemic harm. Outside of racial harm, all the other systemic harm exists there, and we also actually have racial inequity in India because it's this huge country and there are different ethnicities of people there. So I was always trying to work with clients considering these intersectional factors. And then when I came here and saw, it was all just covered up, none of the layers were being peeled back, there was no understanding of how these different factors affect clients, it was all hyper individualistic. And then, you know, I saw colleagues being frustrated that their clients weren't achieving their goals, therapeutic goals or not moving forward because the problem was not within them. The problem was not in that individual client and my colleagues couldn't see that. Being a psychologist, being a therapist, being a clinician, I use all these different words because then I'm all about unhyphenating the identity, and I have all of these labels and they're all fitting for me. And I just felt like, I have to talk about this because this is how I am at work. You want me to bring my whole self to work, this is my whole self. And the work is gonna impact. I am not, you know, wearing PPE at work so that the work completely just moves away from me when I take it off and go back home at the end of the day. That's not how it works.
Aileen:
And I think it doesn't work for anyone, right? But I also, when we're talking about what's in it for our allies, is this recognition that you also come as your whole self to work. You don't need to separate yourself. Maybe you leave less things outside the door because, well, it could be that the interventions are more aligned with your culture and it was made for you. But, you're still, there's still part of you that you need to live outside. And this is a call out to come to work and to your professional practice with your whole self, for the benefit of the client that I have in front of me. Especially, one of the things that I, well that I'm working on, it's on getting the language to explain my experience in practice. I've always been called to advocate for my clients because I believe like, this is not the problem of my client. This is the system where they are. And especially in working with kids in a school setting, it's always been about how can I advocate for this child? So I ended up, I always wonder, oh, should this be done by a social worker? Like, where's the line? Maybe I'm stepping out, I’m having AHPRA at the back of my head. And I'm guessing that now when I am finding the language, it's like, no, I cannot separate what I'm doing from being an advocate. I cannot separate….for this individual, community and community harmony is important. I cannot separate them from that and focus on self-care and individual goals. When, for this person, it's so important community and it's part of their wellbeing. I can't do that. So finding that value, that language. It's been so liberating having these conversations where we can actually build this together.
Do you think there's some patterns coming up in the Other Chair for, for professionals that are people of colour?
Smruthy:
Yes, there are. And these are conversations – you know Bimba, who works at Unhyphen with me, and Bimba has been involved since that first session and she's done everything possible to hold up the other half of The Other Chair for me. And I have these conversations often with Biba, so she's my venting sounding board because I've been running The Other Chair for three and a half years now. Exactly three and a half years in April. And, I did notice that…I'm just gonna come out and say it. Just because you’re a person of colour doesn’t mean automatically that they’re culturally aware. Or that you know how to do culturally responsive practice. And I find it very challenging, I think there is that deep sense of, you know, following the truth and wanting justice. And that comes out in my personal feelings as well, because I hate it when people use the platform of being a person of colour or a multicultural or migrant person or having a refugee experience. And then claim that they know what's best for the sector because of their lived experience only. And it's not to disrespect lived experience, but to say lived experience is one part. If we want our allies to be in this with us, we are not expecting them to automatically have lived experience of racial harm. Not everybody is gonna get that. That's not what this is about. This is about doing the work. This is about chasing that knowledge. This is about self reflection. This is about pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, outside of your privilege, and really doing that deep reflection and following that up with action. There are so many components to being culturally responsive. I'm an idealist and I want everyone to do all those components, so I have to, you know, tone my thinking down and I have to really slow it down and be patient and know that everyone is on their journey and they'll get there, but we have to meet them where they're at, right? That's what we tell each other about our clients.
And I've definitely noticed that for some migrant therapists who have come into The Other Chair, they would have only lasted one session, they won't come back after, and I assume that's because we're so fiercely intersectional and openly talk about systemic harm. That they might not be there yet. This might be a bit too much for them. This might be a bit too forward for them. So they have to do the work to get there. And you know what? I have those people who have done the work and then come back to The Other Chair six months later, and then now are still a part of it. So I know that they're on their journey and it works for them. And that's fantastic. There are also the people, you know, like you've been so honest Aileen, about coming into this process and then finding that language and finding the solidarity with other people. Those are the people who keep showing up and to be as inclusive as we can, we've always kept it free, we've always kept it open to membership. We've always kept it that you don't have to come to every session. You don't have to show up if you cannot. You only need to show up when you can, and it's totally okay to come into The Other Chair, meet your needs, and then, you know, not talk to us for the next three months or whatever. It's totally fine. We are open to that because we recognize that everyone's on different parts of this journey.
You'll also find that for some therapists who have either grown up in Australia as people of colour and faced a lot of systemic harm that they might not have named as systemic harm. Or for the therapist who have come as migrants and then for the sake of their survival in this sector, they have had to listen to that internalised racism, they have had to power themselves up and present themselves as this self who can fit in, and, you know, who will take all these racially charged casual racism jokes and oh, it's just a joke. You know, we have this persona that you can present. Those people really struggle to be in a space like The Other Chair. And I'm not calling that out, I'm just saying I think it's okay to acknowledge they have to survive within this sector. They're chosen a different form of survival. That's who they're great. Good for them.
Aileen:
Yeah, and I think what I found very important in what you're saying is that cultural responsiveness is a journey. You don't get a certificate and say like, oh, from now on, you're a cultural responsive practitioner. (both laugh). And we're all in this journey and in different points of it and I think that's the beauty of it, as long as we keep moving. And what I'm hearing from you is that the dangerous position is to feel like we got it. Or to stay in the same place, not to look for that, not keep seeking for that knowledge. Not to keep reflecting, not to keep trying to move in this journey. It's just this assumption that we are or that it doesn't exist. It's just like the static position. Is that what I'm getting?
Smruthy:
Yes. Very much so. It's kind of like that… cultural humility is the term that people use often, aligned with cultural responsivity, but what that means is having this humility to say, I cannot be someone who knows everything. I cannot know the experience of the billions of people on the earth. I cannot. I can empathise with that and I can learn to do better. And I was actually thinking about something you put in the in the questions Aileen, about the last thing that changed my practice and this is that humility part of knowing there is always that Johari window of the unknown. You know, there are things that you don't know about what you don't know, and that's okay, and it's just about nudging that window a bit and it's okay to tell your clients as well, I don’t know, I’m learning about this. You teach me. What was your experience and how do you see it as a person rather than I tell you what that experience would be like.
Aileen:
Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. Because it's so important to do this acknowledgement of, it's a process of growing and as long we allow ourself the discomfort. And we can push through the discomfort of like, oh, I might be making a mistake right now. You know, when we look back in 10 years, I might think, oh, that wasn't my best. That discomfort, it's the one that we go through to keep learning, right? And getting out of our comfort zone.
You've told me a lot about your professional. Journey. But what do you think is one of the pieces of your identity or you as a person growing up that has really shaped your professional practice?
Smruthy:
I think a big part of my journey in Australia has been about me being a migrant, and I mention this anywhere that I go and that I speak, Because it's important for people to understand that just because you don't have the exact same experience as them growing up here doesn't mean that your experience is lacking.
And people don't always get that. I had this very strange interaction with another colleague, you know? It really pains me to say this, that psychologist engage with this way with each other. But at a previous workplace, during a professional development session we were doing values, and we had to rank our top three values, and we had to share them in the group. And I ranked, I think, justice and independence and something else is my favourite three values and that's what I was feeling that day. And we were debriefing about that in the group. And the other psychologist sitting next to me, she said, oh, wow, you got really independent when you moved to Australia.
Aileen:
Oh! (laughs incredulously)
Smruthy:
I know. Why would you say that to anyone?
I could feel my whole body tense and my face got really hot, I probably turned red, and I could feel the fear pricking the backs of my eyes. And I took a deep breath and I told myself, this is a teachable moment. You know what? I'm not going to let this go. This is a teachable moment. This is a group of my peers, I am safe right now, I am going to step in and actually say what I think. And I told her, I did not get empowered since I moved here, I had 29 years worth of experience before I came to Australia where I had the chance to reflect on my values, this was just a reflection of my existing values, Australia did not help me understand what my values were. And the other person, and I was gentle about how I said it, it was her turn to go red and I could see the tears swelling up in her. And she had the grace to step in and say, oh, that’s not what I meant to say, oh okay that makes total sense. What you said makes sense. And we both took a deep breath and we left at that. But I really hope that psychologist walked away from that PD session knowing to never assume that people only have values when they move to Australia, and not think that they did not have values just because they did not use the exact English terms of justice, honesty, and independence. Those terms exist globally.
Aileen:
And it’s hard, and I think that's part of the cultural load that I feel that I need to educate everyone, all the time. But I also, I joke with my friends and say like, I don't trust black people who are not mad.
Smruthy:
Yeah – like how can you not be angry? And that’s been my learning journey with The Other Chair of recognising that not everyone is reflecting the same way I am, or some people are reflecting, but also that some people just have to survive. And in order to survive, it's easy to just absorb the shame, absorb the internalised racism, and you know, white supremacy and homophobia and the lack of diversity. Refuse to acknowledge it and you see it. So yeah, we also engage in those behaviors in order to survive.
Aileen:
Of course. And I invited someone who, to me, like it's a, it's a woman of colour, and I invited her to a conference and she said like, oh, I'm not a woman of colour. Her heritage, she's South American. And she’s like, no, but I'm not a woman of colour. I'm like, it's okay, don't worry. It was like, that's where you're at. For me, it's worked, like it’s one of my social identities that I’m a woman of colour, whereas privately it could be like I'm a single mom or whatever. But at work, I can feel the loneliness of being the only woman of colour from a migrant background with English as a second language.
Smruthy:
Yeah. And that's exactly the load we're carrying, the invisible burden that we’re constantly having to carry and we don't have the privilege of letting go of that. Even clients sometimes make comments, right? They would say something and then they say, oh, do you understand this word? Things like that. They would just say things like that because they don't have a duty on this journey to be on this journey with us. And sometimes parts of our culture are just not very comfortable to talk about. You know, there's sexism or there's colourism as part of my culture, certainly, and that's really difficult when clients also assume that we also buy into those stereotypes, you know of our own cultures, and we have to actively clarify that, you know, like that’s a part of my culture that I choose not to engage in that.
Aileen:
Or part of your religions. Like, me as a Catholic, who make assumptions of what I think about homosexuality. And I'm like, that's part of my religion, but I worked it out differently and that's okay with me. Or being South American and part of, I feel like South Americans, especially women, have been exoticized, like it's an exotic thing. And I'm like, I’m very common in my country. Don't. Um, which is, it's very shameful to talk about. So those are the challenges that I feel getting together and talking about and having difficult conversations, especially when we're all in a different point of our journey. So thank you so much for your honesty today, Smruthy.
I can't leave without asking you what brings you joy? We've talked about the challenges. How do you fill your cup?
Smruthy:
The reason I said this is a double-edged sword is deeply connected to that, bringing your whole self to it, because a lot things that bring me joy are also work related. So I really have already burnt out a couple of times because I love the work and I love doing it. I've been to a policy course a couple of weeks ago, and that was like a two day policy course and you know, a bunch of random people. But that first day, Aileen, I didn't need coffee or anything. I was just buzzing with energy and, you know, waiting to absorb all this knowledge because I really wanted to learn.
So it's finding that balance between how many work things do I want to take on that fill my cup, and how many non-work things do I want to take on? And there are quite a few things that I committed to after burning out a few times. So I, you know, take time out to do what I really love and make sure I have time for hobbies.
And now as a parent, I hate. for other people, I hate this when that becomes their entire identity, because I think it should be one more layer to your identity. I don't see myself as a mum. I see myself as an equal parenting partner in that parenting partnership for my child. But I also take time to do things for myself as well as for my child.
So one of the things I committed to doing was going back to reading as much as I could during COVID, and I also realised it’s so easy for white male authors to get books published. So since COVID, since 2020, I would say more than 95% of what I have read is works by women of colour. That for me really fulfilling to be able to uphold that intersectionality in my personal life as well. So if you need some recommendations, I have some.
Aileen:
I love it, I need some recommendations. Lovely, thank you so much, really. Oh my goodness, this been great. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Anita (outro):
Thanks for listening to Psychology for Everyone Everywhere, All At Once: Conversations about diversity in psychology. This is a wholly independent passion project created by myself, Anita Gupta and Aileen Guatache, and produced by me with original music by Casey Nicholson. Aileen and I live, work and play on Bunurong and Wurundjeri country here in Naarm. Continue the conversation by rating or reviewing our podcast if you like, and we look forward to chatting with you next time.